


immerse me in your splendor

by reachthetree



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Acting, Actor Louis, Actor Zayn, M/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 15:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5010328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reachthetree/pseuds/reachthetree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you consider the professional aspects of it, Louis’ first paid acting job doesn’t go all that well.</p>
<p>He’s quite happy with it, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	immerse me in your splendor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zouisprince](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zouisprince/gifts).



> Hiya zouisprince! I jumped in as a pinch-hitter, and I wish I could have given your nice prompts more time and effort, but alas. I hope you like this little thing anyway!
> 
> Based on [this](http://twinkwolf.tumblr.com/post/115992630448/au-idea-two-extras-have-to-sit-across-from-each) lovely tumblr post.
> 
> Title from The Stone Roses' 'This is the one', because I have Zouis feelings about Stone Roses always.
> 
> Also shoutout to [Caroline](http://legobitar.tumblr.com) for looking this over for me. Thank you. 
> 
> Okay, enjoy! :) xx

When you consider the professional aspects of it, Louis’ first paid acting job doesn’t go all that well.

He’s quite happy with it, though.

-

Louis arrives to the restaurant where the filming is going to take place about half an hour early. That should have been his first clue that it would be a life changing day; Louis Tomlinson simply isn’t early. But today he woke up before his alarm, his entire body thrumming with excitement.

So here he is now, outside a closed restaurant at 6.30 am. Usually when this happens he’s shitfaced. He taps his fingers against the Costa cup in his hand and tries not to wish he had a cigarette.

It’s not a big deal, he tells himself. Just your average ‘finally getting somewhere on the path to your dream job’. Not a big fucking deal.

There’s an off-licence across the street. Louis glances at his watch: 6:34. His legs start crossing the street before he can even try to stop himself. Really, he quit smoking, and this isn’t changing that. It’s just a big day.

The man behind the counter looks less than thrilled to sell Louis Pall Malls and a green lighter, but Louis’s got energy for the both of them. It’s fucking weird. Energy before 7 am? This is truly a day to mark down in history.

When Louis steps out onto the street again, it’s warmer, officially more morning than night now. His fingers are still cold, though. It takes a few tries to get the cigarette lit, but when he does, the first drag is fucking heavenly. Louis outright groans in pleasure. Why did he quit again?

“That sounds good,” a deep voice says behind him, and Louis jerks in surprise and spins around. “Mind if I bum one?”

The stranger smiles crookedly and Louis’ mind becomes an incoherent garble of words. Jesus, eyes, fucking, cheekbones, Christ.

“I feel like I’m on the Titanic,” Louis jokes, because that’s what he does. “Don’t go drowning on me, Jack.”

He lets the cigarette rest in the corner of his mouth as he reaches the pack of cigarettes over, holding it open with his fingers, and with his other hand he hands over the lighter.

“Cheers.” The stranger smiles again. “It’s Zayn, not Jack. Not planning on drowning today.”

Staring a stranger too intently in the eye is weird. Louis knows this. He knows, and yet he finds himself holding Zayn’s gaze for as long he thinks he can get away with because his eyes seem endless. Zayn’s angles are sharp, perfectly cut like a marble statue they’d wank over in ancient Greece, but his eyes are warm and soft. Looking at his face feels a bit like sitting by a campfire on a beach under a starry sky.

“That’s great, Zayn,” Louis responds after what is probably way too long. Maybe he can blame it on the early morning. “I’m Louis.”

Zayn shakes his hand and they both grin with a cigarette pressed between their lips. It’s a particular facial expression, and it makes Louis want to laugh.

There’s no time for that, though, because someone puts their head out of a car window and yells at them, “are you extras?”

They hurry to put out their cigarettes and follow the person’s instructions to get inside. So the day begins.

-

The film is about two girls who fall in love and do cute romantic shit. The director doesn’t put it like that, but that’s what she means. Seems easy enough. Louis zones out when she talks to the main actors, looking at the interior of the restaurant. There are a lot of shiny wooden surfaces, and the red floor carpet feels fairly new through Louis’ Converse.

It could have been a lot more posh, Louis supposes, but he can feel ‘expensive’ in the air. Or maybe it’s in the carpet. The lights are dimmed, which somehow contributes to the feeling.

After a while, the director says the word “extras” and Louis sharpens his ears. “All right.” She narrows her eyes and looks through the people gathered around her. “You,” she says decisively and point to Zayn. “And… You.” Her finger points to Louis.

There’s a surge of nerves through Louis’ body.

“You two sit in camera view,” she clarifies. “Good faces.” Theoretically, it should be a compliment, but it doesn’t feel like one.

Zayn catches Louis’ eye and smiles hesitantly.

They get shown to a table, and instructed to get to know each other while they get other things into place. The table is behind one of the girls, with both of their sides visible. As soon as Louis sits down he adjusts his t-shirt so it falls the right way over his stomach. Profile has never been his favourite view of himself. He swallows and feels the edge of the tablecloth with his fingers; no fray edges there. 

“So, you came back,” he says jokingly. He can’t stop tapping his foot, but it doesn’t make a sound against the thick carpet.

“Pardon?” Zayn furrows his eyebrows.

“Titanic,” Louis explains. He hates having to explain his jokes. “Reference humour.”

Most people would say a polite “oh, okay” and look thoroughly unimpressed. Zayn, however, lights up when he connects the comment to Louis’ reference from earlier and his face blooms into a smile.

“Of course,” he says. “Excuse me, it’s been an early morning.”

Louis looks down at the table as he grins. “Me too.”

In the corner of his eye Louis sees that the camera people are focused on the two girls in the foreground, dabbing makeup on both of them and reminding them of their lines. Louis isn’t jealous. He’s not. They probably had to start somewhere, too, right? Right.

“So where are you from?” Zayn asks, and Louis jerks out of his thoughts and looks at Zayn again.

He’s looking at Louis with this “I don’t know” facial expression, and shrugs when Louis doesn’t immediately answer.

“Yorkshire,” Louis says. “Doncaster. What about you?” He tries a smile.

“Action!” The director yells a couple feet away and Louis tenses in his seat. He sees Zayn swallow.

“Right.” Zayn gives a short huff of laughter. “So it begins. I’m from Bradford, by the way.”

If they were in a pub Louis would fistbump him. As it is, he opts for smiling big. “Sick.”

“Not as sick as London.” Zayn smiles. “Been here long?”

Usually when Louis gets this question, he just says the number of years he’s lived here. But he’s here, and Zayn looks genuinely interested, and the rush from being on a set has him feeling reckless.

“Almost six years now,” Louis says. “I sort of ran away when I was eighteen.”

Zayn’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”

Louis nods. The girls in the movie are saying their lines, classic awkward flirting. “It was a terrible idea,” he says. “Seemed great at the time. I had a friend I’d met at a gig in Manchester who’d already moved here, and I told my mum I’d visit her and then I just didn’t go home. She was pissed.”

“Wow.” Zayn looks amused. “Did she forgive you?”

“Yeah, thank God.” Louis shakes his head at the memory. “I was a right dick, but she was used to that I suppose. Think she was mostly worried I’d start doing drugs or summat.”

“Did you?” Zayn leans forward and puts his chin in his hands, like this is an interesting story.

Louis laughs. “Nothing I wasn’t already doing in Doncaster,” he admits. “Nothing too heavy, though.”

Zayn nods seriously. Louis doesn’t know what to do with this person; most people get uncomfortable when he tells this story, which is why he rarely tells it.

“What about you, then?” Louis leans forward, resting his elbows on the table in a way he probably shouldn’t in a posh place like this. “Let me hear your origin story.”

Zayn grins at the words “origin story” and Louis’ hands automatically finds his fringe, trying to put it into place.

“I didn’t run away,” Zayn starts. “But I moved here at eighteen too. Had saved money for two years from different jobs, actually. I didn’t know anyone.”

Louis pouts in sympathy before he can stop himself. “Aww.”

“Shut up.” Zayn looks embarrassed. “I can take care of myself.”

“I have no doubt.” Louis raises his hands. “Sounds scary to me, is all. Move to a city where you don’t know anyone. Don’t know if I could have done it at that age, to be honest.”

Zayn shrugs. “You kind of make it up as you go along,” he says. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“Still,” Louis says. “Brave.”

Zayn looks down at his hands on the table with a bashful smile.

The main characters of the film are talking, but it’s just a buzz in the background. Louis is watching Zayn, noticing how his fingernails are short and with little specks of colour on them.

“Is that nail varnish?” The question slips out and the second after Louis realises that this could potentially be a sensitive topic. Just his luck.

Zayn shakes his head, though. “Nah, ‘s paint, innit.” He spreads his fingers out and looks down at his nails, like an afterthought. “I see what you mean, though.”

Danger over. Louis exhales. “So you paint, eh?”

“A bit.” Zayn looks up at him and grins. “Nothing serious, but it’s good fun.”

“That’s the important thing,” Louis says. He’s got no idea if that’s true.

“What do you do for fun, then?” Zayn puts his hands together on the table in front of him and leans forward.

Louis scratches at his neck; the tag in his t-shirt is itchy. “Oh, um, I don’t know. I watch a lot of tv. Play football sometimes.”

Zayn nods like he’s genuinely interested, and Louis has never thought of himself as boring until this very moment.

“What do you watch? Tv shows, I mean.”

This feels like a test. “Well, my all time favourite show is Lost.” Louis fixes his fringe and doesn’t turn his gaze away, he looks right at Zayn like it’s a challenge.

Across from him, Zayn positively lights up. “Bro, me too!”

It’s a little thing, but something in Louis loosens up then. He leans forward, and is actually impressed by Zayn’s thoughts on the show. Zayn’s funny, too, in a way Louis didn’t expect when he ran into him before.

When the conversation has lulled, there’s a beat of silence during which Zayn looks at Louis in a funny way. A way that makes Louis want to fix his fringe again.

“Do I have spinach between my teeth or something?” Louis has never been good at tense quietness. Even if the tension is a good one.

Zayn just smiles slowly. “No,” he says. “I was just thinking the director was right about your face.”

“What–” Louis only begins the question before he remembers. ‘Good faces’. “Oh.” He looks down and sweeps his fringe over to the right side, then looks up at Zayn. “You too.”

Zayn makes a face that’s somewhere between a smile and a pout, for some reason holding back, and then it’s his turn to look down. Louis is nervous, but he smiles, vaguely aware that there are cameras on them.

“Want to tell me something else about your life?” 

Zayn looks up. “I don’t know if there’s much to tell,” he says.

“So you’re not–” Louis stops himself. He wants to ask if Zayn is dating anyone, but he can’t bring himself to.

But Zayn quirks an eyebrow at him. “So I’m not in a relationship, you mean?”

Louis would like the expensive carpet to open to a slide right down to hell where he belongs. His face is definitely disproportionately warm compared to the rest of his body. “Not where I was going at all,” he tries, but he doesn’t even convince himself.

Zayn _giggles_. It’s appallingly adorable. “It’s fine,” he says, continuing to be calm in all the ways Louis isn’t. “I’m not, by the way.” He looks at Louis with that crooked smile and all of Louis’ nerves explode in a laugh.

Louis is still laughing, biting his lip and trying to stop, but failing every time because Zayn keeps looking at him, when he feels a tap on his shoulder. He jerks and turns his head to see the director. She looks put out. Oh no.

“I’m glad you’re getting along, lads,” she says in a tone that indicates the exact opposite. “But maybe tone down the flirting and leave that to the actual characters?”

Zayn makes a weird coughing sound and Louis feels like his face is on fire. “Right, yeah.” He can’t look at her. “Sorry.”

“Thank you.” She gives them a pressured smile before she walks away.

There’s a beat of silence, during which Louis looks sternly at the tablecloth and not at Zayn.

“Flirting, eh?” Zayn’s voice is deep and when Louis looks up, he waggles his eyebrows. With the director’s instructions in mind, Louis bites back the laugh threatening to escape him.

“You’re my Jack,” he whispers. “We’ve both seen Titanic enough times to know what that entails.”

“I like how you just assume I’ve seen Titanic multiple times,” Zayn whispers back. His pretty mouth is an amused curve, and God. Not flirting with him would have been against everything Louis believes in, which is that every beautiful person should have the privilege of being with him in one way or other.

“Haven’t you?” Louis puts his hand on his chest dramatically. “Our movie romance is ruined.” The moment he says ‘romance’ he wants to burrow himself into the expensive carpeting. What is he doing?

But Zayn just grins and shakes his head. “Nah, it isn’t. I was joking, and you were right.”

Louis pretends like he isn’t breathing a sigh of relief. “Those words are like music to my ears.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Zayn lets out a short, quiet laugh. “Normally at this point I’d ask you to get out of here, but we’re getting paid for this.”

Louis has to laugh, then, too, struggling to keep it quiet. “I didn’t think my first paid acting job would turn out like this,” he admits. “I really didn’t.”

But when Zayn smiles, he doesn’t think it could have turned out better.

-

It’s strange to come out of the relative dark of the restaurant into broad daylight. Louis squints against the sun and offers Zayn a cigarette before he asks.

“Cheers.” Zayn smiles and Louis flicks the lighter on. When Zayn bends forward to light his cig on it, his eyelashes fan over his cheekbones in a way that seems almost exaggerated, like this is a movie and the camera has zoomed in on them with high definition.

Louis looks away when he lights his own and inhales deeply. He’d been wrapped up in their conversation, but it’s starting to hit him that he’s going to be in an actual movie. The tension and anticipation is seeping out of him and replaced with a restless energy.

“So,” he starts on the exhale, tapping the ground with his foot. “That didn’t go too terribly.” 

Zayn chuckles. “Suppose not.” He takes a drag. “How about lunch, then?”

**2 years later**

If Zayn would just stand still, tying his tie would be a lot easier. Louis sighs and his tongue flits out to the corner of his mouth as he’s trying to concentrate.

“What if I trip on the red carpet?” Zayn’s hands are actually shaking.

Louis’ hands are busy, but he stops in the movement and kisses Zayn’s cheek. “You’ll be fine,” he says as reassuringly as he can. “Unless I trip you, that is.”

Louis yelps when Zayn pinches him in the nipple. “Do not trip me, please.”

“Fine.” Louis rolls his eyes, and finishes up with the tie. “There. All done.”

He takes a step back to admire his work. Zayn looks stunning, if he may say so himself. Black suit, pastel pink shirt, and a thin black tie. Sharp and soft at the same time. He smiles fondly.

“You’ve come so far since we met,” he murmurs.

“Shut up.” Zayn looks embarrassed. “You have too, you know.”

“Whatever, Mr Leading Role.” Louis grins. He could be bitter that Zayn is doing better than him – his younger self probably would be – but he doesn’t have room in his heart for that anymore. Besides, he’s in the same film, just not as a main character. (The few scenes he had with Zayn had to be reshot a lot of times because they kept laughing. Pissing off directors is sort of Louis’ specialty, he’s realised.)

They’d moved in together about a year after meeting for the first time. Harry, who Louis had been sharing with before, moved in with her girlfriend, and the timing seemed right. On the wall where there used to be a poster of one of Harry’s wanky indie faves, there’s now one of Zayn’s paintings. Zayn thought it was embarrassing that Louis wanted to display it but he got his way in the end.

The film they’re about to attend the premiere for is Zayn’s big break. Magazines have started talking about him (usually mentioning Louis as a sidenote) and during filming he’d been papped for the first time. It’s new, but it’s something he seems to be made for. Zayn’s paparazzi photos look like he’s on a catwalk. In one of them you can see Louis in the corner, and he was biting into a hotdog very unattractively.

“Come on, then,” Zayn says and nods to Louis’ Stone Roses t-shirt. “Aren’t you going to change?”

Louis grins wickedly. “No, I’m going to go like this.” He lifts his leg a little so he can wave the roomy sweatpants material in the air. “Mm. Breezy.”

“I hate you.” Zayn sighs, but then he walks over to Louis and kisses his forehead. “You could go in that and I’d still be proud to have you by my side,” he whispers into Louis’ hair.

The words come out of Louis’ mouth by reflex; he’s said it many times before and feels it always. 

“I love you.”


End file.
